Ahsan Choudhuri

On Saturday night at the Spring Commencement, the doctoral hoods worn by Chance Garcia and Jesus Flores as they walk to the stage will reflect much more than the shining light of personal excellence but also the emergence of a powerful national research university that defies the traditional choice between Access and Excellence. We hold a deep compassion for merging opportunities with excellence. Chance will start his aerospace research career with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in June, and Jesus has already joined a coveted engineering team at a pioneering commercial space exploration company, Blue Origin.   Engineering doctoral graduates such as Chance and Jesus carry a strong message from UTEP, i.e., it’s clear intention to change the face of the engineering workforce. Although Hispanics are still a tiny fraction of the aerospace research workforce, the academic success of Chance and Jesus is the symbol of a Sputnik-like generation of engineers who are inspired, excite...

When three of the doctoral students from our Energy Science and Engineering PhD track graduated this semester, it wasn’t just business as usual. Aside from the graduates receiving job offers in the energy industry way before their dissertation defenses, these graduates have something special that makes all the difference—they were trained very differently than the way most doctoral programs train their students.   When we first started our Energy Science and Engineering program, we did not just want to create a PhD program to graduate future professors only. Rather, we wanted to train a generation of doctoral engineers who will understand that the research is not only the production of knowledge but also the transformation of knowledge into valuable commodities, commodities that will retain the United States’ supremacy in energy technology businesses and create jobs to support our quality of life. We wanted them to understand that the transition from knowledge to commodities ...